Colored sand, a great deal of patience and his bare hands are all Joe Mangrum needs to create his incredible sand pantings on the sidewalks of New York.

Joe Mangrum was a painter for many years, but only started creating art with sand in the Fall of 2009. He chose to work with sand because it’s an ephemeral medium that can simply be swept away at the the end of the day, after he’s had a chance to express his talent and amaze passers-by. I never thought sprinkling colored sand through the bottom of your fist could lead to such amazing works of art, but Mangrum’s creations prove patience and talent are the basis of truly incredible things. The gifted street artist spends hours on end on his hands and knees sprinkling his colored sand onto the sidewalk to create ephemeral masterpieces that catch the eye of everyone around him.

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Eating in a car is not everyone’s idea of an enjoyable meal, but at the P.S. Bu Bu Restaurant, in Taiwan, it’s a must. This automotive-themed venue features all kinds of auto accessories and even full cars as dining tables.

Established in 1999, by two classic car enthusiasts, P.S. Bu Bu is an innovative restaurant that serves all kinds of popular Western dishes, as well as fusion cuisine that caters to the tastes of Taiwanese people. Although the food is to die for, it’s not the main reason people choose to eat at P.S. Bu Bu. Most of them just come here to be transported back to the “swinging sixties” by the unique decorations and accessories of the restaurant. Parked inside the restaurant are iconic automobiles like the Mini Austin, Volkswagen Beetle, 1963 Cadillac Series 6200 Coupe or a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air.

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Bristol-based Alexander Korzer Robinson creates incredible works of art by carving discarded encyclopedias and literally exposing their inner beauty. Book carving is one of the fastest growing art forms of the moment, and artists like Alexander Korzer Robinson, Brian Dettmer and Guy Laramee are leading the movement.

Korzer Robinson carefully cuts into the pages of old encyclopedias, exposing a part of its illustrations, while removing others, to create narrative scenes that are truly unique. While the images seem like they’re somehow suspended in a series of layers inside the book sculptures, they are actually left in their original place. It’s the artist’s technique that makes it look like they were placed there by hand. As you can probably guess by looking at the artworks below, book carving is a delicate and time-consuming process, but the end results are absolutely mind-blowing.

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Mark Pearson, a 44-year-old repairman who loves comic books, has spent 14 months of his life creating an almost perfect replica of Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit, from sheets of cardboard covered in fiberglass.

Perason certainly isn’t the first one to build a replica of the famous Iron man suit, but his is definitely one of the most realistic looking, regardless of the materials during the build.  “I don’t know why I did it”, the repairman from Bradford, West Yorkshire, says, “I guess it was just a moment of madness. I decided on making the helmet then I said to my partner – I’m going to make the full suit.” The comics fan bought himself a 12ft cardboard model of Robert Downey Jr. in his iconic superhero suit, started work on the helmet, but simply couldn’t stop. He downloaded the templates from the Internet, and made them into cardboard moulds. Once those were all created, he was able to create the fiberglass parts of his magnificent Iron Man suit.

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He may look like one, but Dominic Deville is not some escaped lunatic out to hurt your kids. He’s an evil clown for hire who stalks young victims for a week, sending them scary texts, making prank phone calls, stalking them from a distance, and ultimately attacks them with a pie to the face. And yes, he expects to get paid for it.

If you’ve ever seen Stephen King’s “It”, you know clowns can be very scary. I myself am terrified of them, to be honest, and I’ve never even seen that movie, just some quick scenes of it. But horror films like this are exactly what inspired Dominic Deville to start up his lucrative business, Evil Clown, in Lucerne, Switzerland. His service requires him to put on an evil clown outfit and scaring a child senseless for a week. During this time, he stalks his “prey” from a distance, sending them creepy messages, making prank calls and warning them they are being watched and that they’ll soon be attacked. “The child feels more and more that it is being pursued,” Deville told Metro, but “the clown’s one and only aim is to smash a cake into the face of his victim, when they least expect it, during the course of seven days.” And if they manage to avoid the hit, they are given the cake as a present.

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Hiccups, we all get them from time to time, and the most annoying thing about them is they are so darn hard to get rid of. But 13-year-old Mallory Kievman seems to have finally found a cure to this irritating problem – a hiccup-stopping lollipop called the Hiccupop.

Mallory’s quest to find a real cure for hiccups started during the summer of 2010. She had tried to cure her uncontrollable hiccups by swallowing saltwater, making herself gag, eating a spoonful of sugar, drinking a glass of water upside-down or sipping pickle juice. None of those seemed to work on their own, but the ambitious young girl was determined to find a real cure for the annoying problem man has been facing since the beginning of time. Fast forward two years and almost 100 folk remedies tried, Mallory Kievman has reached her goal and is starting a company to commercialize and promote her magic product – Hiccupops.

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Dr Rev Mayers is an Australian tattoo artist with a passion for creating crimson artworks using nothing but blood. Using a variety of art techniques, he paints incredibly detailed yet somewhat creepy works of art.

Some artist would probably call Dr. Rev crazy for using his own blood on all of his paintings, but so far his disregard for the norm has proven very successful, as his works have been exhibited all around the world. The Sydney-based tattoo artist uses airbrushing, standard paint brushing, scraping, smudging and layering to create his realistic masterpieces that aim to depict growth, human constraint while capturing the viewer’s heart and soul. In time, he has managed to progress naturally from tattooing and doing body art, to his new found passion, blood painting.

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Marylin Mansfield, a plus-size model from Staten Island, has turned her home into a creepy nursery filled with over 300 dolls, including reborn babies, Barbies and Goth-like Krypt Kiddies.

We’ve posted our share of wacky doll collectors here on Oddity Central, like this lady with a thing for antique dolls, this other one who loves clowns, or the couple who share their home with love dolls, but Marylin actually treats her plastic collectibles like real babies. “I take them anywhere you would bring a real baby. I don’t do it for the shock value. I do it for myself because it makes me happy. I just loved when my kids were babies — and these babies stay babies forever. I buy them clothes. They never grow out of them and they never get dirty”, the tattooed platinum blonde says about her peculiar hobby.

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A young married couple, from Mijas, Malaga, have decided to quit their jobs, sell everything they own, and go on an adventure around the world, with their two little children, in a caravan.

Do you ever get so tired of your boring life and tedious job that you feel like leaving it all behind and going on an exciting adventure? I know I do, but I’m just too much of a coward to say goodbye to a comfortable lifestyle and venture into the unknown. Fernando Fernandez and his wife Fleur, both 29, were also a little scared to put everything they knew behind them and go on a trip around the globe, but they managed to lock their fears away and pursue their life-long dream of seeing the world. They realize it’s going to be tough living in a camper with their two small children, Aisha (5) and Noah (1), but they feel it’s a sacrifice worth making in order to truly live their lives.

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Emer O’Toole, a 28-year-old Irish journalist has created an Internet buzz after she appeared on a morning show and revealed her hairy armpits and legs. The confident young woman said she hasn’t shaved in 18 months, since she decided to challenge the notion that women must shave their body hair in order to be happy and feel attractive.

It’s true Emer isn’t the only woman in the world who doesn’t shave her armpits and legs, but in modern society, woman bodily hair is one very big social taboo. But the graduate student from Dublin started examining her relationship with her body and her body hair and realized she had first started shaving when she was 14 just because it was expected of her, not because she had to. So she decided to make herself the main protagonist of an experiment that would challenge society’s notions of female beauty. She simply stopped shaving her body hair for the last 18 months.

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Adorned with colorful accessories and shiny fixtures, the Jeepney buses of the Philippines are probably the most flamboyant means of public transportation in the world, rivaling even the art trucks of Pakistan.

Jeepneys are the most popular means of transportation in the Philippines, and are considered a symbol of the archipelago, despite recent controversy regarding their heavily-polluting emissions. The history of Jeepney buses dates back to the final days of World War II. When American forces withdrew from the Philippines, they either left behind or sold hundreds of surplus jeeps. The country’s public transportation had been destroyed by the war, so people started modifying the jeeps to accommodate more passengers and classified them as passenger-style jeeps. Recognizing the wide-spread use of these new vehicles, the Filipino government soon regulated their use.

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It appears in China the saying “study till you drop” is taken quite literally by some, as photos show students receiving amino acid IV drips as they hit the books during late evening studying session for college exam.

You thought you were studying too hard? Well unless you’ve ever needed intravenous medication to keep you from passing out or collapsing due to excessive studying, you have it pretty good compared to these young students at a high school in Xiaogan, central China’s Hubei province. Photos taken late one evening, and posted on popular Chinese site Sina Weibo, show a brightly lit classroom full of students studying National College Entrance Exam, commonly known as “gao kao”. Students appear buried among piles of books, with dozens of IV bags hanging from lines traversing the classroom.

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Daniel Suelo, 51, is a very special person. in 2001, standing on the edge of a highway, he left his life savings, $30, in a phone booth and walked into the desert to start a new life, one that wasn’t based on the rules of modern capitalism. He gave up using money and began living in caves, foraging for wild berries and scavenging for roadkill raccoons and squirrels.

Suelo became an inspiration for thousands of Americans affected by the economic crash and activists like members of the Occupy movement, after his friend, Mark Sundeen, started documenting his way of life. A friend of Daniel, Sundeen admits he though he had gone crazy or suffered a mental break down the first time he heard he had given up money and moved to the desert, in Moab, Utah. They had been out of touch for a few years, but after the economic crash of 2008, he started thinking about his old friend’s ideas. Suelo had once said money was just an illusion, it wasn’t real, and when the money everyone thought they had just started disappearing, Sundeen began to realize Daniel had a point. Because if your house was worth $500,000 today, and just $300,000 the next, what happened to that $200,000, what was that money in the first place? That was when the author got in touch with Suelo and started studying his life.

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Scientist David Edwards teamed up with French Designer Philippe Starck to create the WA|HH mouth spray that gets you drunk instantly, but only for a few seconds. And the best part is you won’t have to deal with and splitting headaches when you wake up the following day.

Ever wish you could feel what it’s like to be drunk without actually drinking anything? I have a few girl friends who have never drunk more than a few sips of beer, but have always been curious to know what it’s like to feel intoxicated. Thanks to the innovative WA|HH Quantum Sensations spray presented during a Paris exhibition, now everyone can experience being drunk for just a few seconds, and without any of the nasty side-effects. According to its creators, the spray produces an immediate shock, like a sensorial alarm, but only lasts a few seconds. Each puff equals 0.075 milliliters of alcohol, so it would take about 1,000 to equal a real drink. ‘We asked ourselves whether we might provide the same agreeable sensation as comes with a sip of alcohol without running the risk of drunkenness,’ Starck said about the spray.

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California-based artist Kristen Cumings spends hours on end piecing together detailed works of art out of thousands of colorful jelly beans. Needless to say her pieces look good enough to eat.

Although it must be fun working with jelly beans for a living, making 4 x 6 feet murals out of them is definitely painstaking work. Cumings uses between 8,000 and 12,000 jelly beans for her stunning masterpieces and it takes over 50 hours to complete each one. She starts the artistic process by looking at a close up of the reference photo, and then visualizes where each colored jelly bean has to go. She then paints an acrylic version of the photo on a blank canvas, and once that dries, she begins applying the small beans and tries to match the colors as best she can. The painter/illustrator uses spray adhesive to make sure the jelly beans stick, and usually likes to start her artworks by recreating the main features, like the eyes and nose. Then she just starts applying the other jelly beans from the bottom up until the piece is completed.

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